Working with Electricity

Imagine inventing, creating, and fixing electrical devices, equipment, and systems.  That’s what Electrical Engineers do.  

My grandfather, Shiva worked as an Electrical Engineer in Bangalore, and joined a company called the New Government Electrical Factory(NGEF). NGEF was a Public Sector Unit (PSU) that manufactured large scale pump sets, transformers, motors, switchgear, power electronics, and semi conductor devices. At the time India had achieved independence, its infrastructure was poor. NGEF was one of the companies created to help fill the void. My Grandpa eventually became the General Manager of NGEF and grew to lead an organization of 6,000 people. During his time at NGEF, he worked on and lead many big infrastructural projects. For example, he worked on supplying motors to many big steel and cement factories in India. He also lead the construction of industrial pumps that raised water 500 meters from the Kaveri River to Bangalore for human consumption. He lead teams that built and installed pumps to marshal water through a forest to irrigate 225 acres of land used to grow crops.

My grandpa found immense satisfaction from helping people. He found many of his projects to be very challenging. For example, the irrigation project was especially challenging, since it was very hard to move all of the equipment and men through the thick vegetation. However, he said, that just made it more worthwhile to see the happy looks on people's faces once they got water for their fields. Overall, he loved his job because he could help people. 

Being an electrical engineer sounds fascinating! A well-paying job, electrical engineering lets you help a lot of people. It seems very interesting to work with all of the factories and infrastructure projects because you get to build impactful things. For science fair, this year, I tried to heat up a copper wire by flowing current through it. It was very difficult, but when I finally got the circuit to work, it felt very exciting. Electrical engineering sounds very cool and I’m excited to look into it!